Thanks for all the replies. Several people stated that BudTool support
was not perfect. It appears to have improved more recently. Specifically...
zilaitis@solomon.bms.com (Vicki Zilaitis) stated
-------
Overall we are very happy with the Budtool Software. The Jukebox
Management software leaves alittle to be desired but Delta has been
very open to suggestions and I am looking forward to the next
software release. It really is an automated system. Once it is
configured very little interface is required except of course when
problems arise.
--------
Alternative back-up systems suggested were:
fallan@awadi.com.au suggested :-
you may want to have a look at Flashback.
We use it for network backups here, and it is supposed to support
stackers, jukeboxes etc, although so far we have not had the
opportunity to try it with any of these.
It certainly works well across the network, and handles multiple backup
devices, even of mixed varieties. It also allows easy scheduling, and
logging with automatic mailing of logs etc, compression of online
indexes & tape labelling, and is driven from an OpenWindows interface.
Also it isn't expensive. The details are below if you are interested.
-------------
shamash@boxhill.com suggested networker from legato, which I had already
investigated. I had trouble getting accurate costs for this.
I eventually discovered that the cost of the Exabyte 60 robotic interface for
networker is UK22K. Everything seems to be an optional extra for networker,
which,for my requirements, would cost me in excess of UK30K for a 100 user
licence.
-----------
jdr@semi.harris.com said:-
we ended up going with
QuickRestore from Workstation solutions. They now have support for the
10i, and have everything we need in a networked backup solution.
The cost is about 2k per server ( the server is the workstation with
the backup device(s)), so overall cost is pretty reasonable.
----------
jan@ii.uib.no stated:-
we use the Backup Co-Pilot dump program, but everything else
is handled by local scripts. We didn't like the fact that Co-Pilot
put the database on the local machines, in stead of a central "dumphost".
The Usenix conference papers have had several interesting reports on
backup strategies. Might be worthwhile to check out.
-----------
alan%merccap@uunet.UU.NET sent me a summary from a previous query on
sun-managers which covered:
Networker Legato
Backup.uunet Systems Center
Budtool Delta Microsystems
Backup Copilot Sun Microsystems
Flashback Pinnacle Micro
----------
Dave@usppc.abb.com is happy with Copilot, having tried Flasback first.
-----------
Christian Lawrence <cal@soac.bellcore.com> stated:
I currently use Networker 25 with the jukebox
and concurrent device add-on modules to drive an ATL with 2 8500's. It
works like a champ !!! I've also used Networker to drive stackers ... and
it works just fine there too. Thats actually one of its good points --
it can drive multiple heterogenous clients (e.g. SOS & AIX) on multiple
interfaces (e.g. single drive, stacker, carousel)....
.... One thing worth noting with all these
packages is that they consume a fair amount of space themselves !!! You
should figure on about a 10 % margin to store all the tape/file indexing
information needed by such a package.
------
art%lsr-vax@uunet.UU.NET (Art Hays - PSTAFF) said:-
Epoch systems has a good backup product that (according to them) scales
better than Networker to large nets. It manages Exabyte's jukebox.
It has an X-based directory browser and recover tool.
It's pricey, but it's good (I use it).
-------
lemke@MITL.COM (Kennedy Lemke) stated:-
I have been using APUNIX's "mdump" program to do backups in our
heterogeneous environment (with a little start-up shell script
hacking to get rdump to do the right thing on DEC, NeXT, HP).
It has been working fine.
But one of my main problems is that it takes up to, say, 12
hours do fill an entire 5 GB tape. This is due in part to slow
dump programs, disks, the network, etc. Bottom line is that the
tape doesn't actually stream during any of the backup process,
and it wastes its time.
Summer '92 USENIX had a paper about a system at Maryland they
developed (freeware) that solves this problem....
..... The system is called "amanda".
----------
sab@abars.att.com stated:-
We have a product called ABARS (Automatic
Backup, Archive, and Recovery System) that backs up a UNIX network
over the network to a single jukebox. It is a combination of hardware
and software that is completely supported by AT&T (no outside vendors
needed!).
--------
dannyd@mel4360(.miden.com.au (Zdenek Dospisil) stated:-
Did you talk to Control Data???~
They have few products , which can solve yours problem .~
They have AWBUS and EL*AWBUS (new name ARIA*BackupPlus), which is
supporting multiple robotic devices including :the Exabyte 10i and
120, the IGM carousel, The Metrum products, the optical jukebox
products , and the STK silo.~
ARIA*Client Migration Manager that automatically migrate files between
a workstation (or server) and higher level server.~
ARIA*Server Migration Manager migrates files between server and
robotic devices ( old name is FARM)~
ARIA*UniTree with support for multiple robotic devices.~
They have as well FDDI .~
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The original query:-
I am hovering on the brink of purchasing this combination (BudTool + Jukebox)
to back-up our ether+FDDI network of Unix(Mostly Sun) systems.
We will soon (Easter) have 50Gb of Computing Service Unix files to back up off
5 servers on an FDDI LAN, PLUS ~20Gbyte(?) of Unix files on
other systems on ethers. We had intended to fit EXB500 tape drives to
the above 5 servers to back up their local files and to back up
the rest(scattered over the net) on an Exabyte Jukebox or IGM ATL carousel.
Having found out the cost per "media-host" of Budtool
licences, I'm now looking at CoPilot for these servers. But Co-Pilot
doesn't seem to manage Robotic devices, hence the remaining interest in BudTool
on a single host for the network backups.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I eventually discovered a product called PMP produced by a UK company
active in Oil Company Computing (PECC).
This provides me with the robotic interface for the Exabyte 60 Jukebox,
an improved dump program, media management software including labelled tapes,
SunOS+DOS client software, user directed restores, a site-wide licence and a
(motif) windows interface at a price which is competative with BudTool and much
better than Networker. I get local support too.
Anyone interested should contact Maxine Dent of PECC, email md@pecc.uucp
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:07:25 CDT